The Samaritans by Mike Shelton - Short, Western - A stranger wanders into town in search of a hired gun, but ends up with an old man, two prostitutes, and an eccentric southern gentleman. - Entry for the January '06 One Week Writing Exercise Thing - pdf, format 8)

As the last one I read tonight, this one finished me off proper.

Got a good lead with a solid motivation and reasons for what he will and won't do. I enjoyed the banter between the major characters. It really helped to build things up.

The ending couldn't have been more appropriate either. I really enjoyed this one. Good work!

A very enjoyable read indeed.  I felt the western them was accurately portrayed not only in the characters, but also the description.  There's just something about the line "hoot and holler" that kind of gives it that vintage western feel.

SPOILER

The ending was exceptional.  There's nothing better than some pretty woman holding rifles, I tell you what.  I also felt one of Baker's final lines "I didn't come here to kill you as  preacher...I came here to kill you as a man," I felt was a pretty nice way to end this.  

Nice story of  a peaceful sort of vengeance if that makes any sense at all.  Overall a great read.

WOW!

A truly fantastic read.

I can only hope that the quality of my writing can be as good as this someday. I am stunned. A very nicely written piece. Very original concept too and I like the way you mastered the western slang.

Well done, whoever you are... though I think I know who may have written it now... ;D

Really a great job here and also a very strong contender in this challenge.



Andy xxx

Really enjoyed this one. I think it's my fav. so far. I have an idea who wrote it too. Someone with a religious upbringing? Someone with a priest in at least two of their scripts?

Great characters in this one, especially Baker and the Scholar. You did a good job of developing these guys in just 15 pages. The dialogue was good too, and a nice, solid resolution at the end. This could easily be developed into a feature. The priest out for revenge is a great premise and one I think you've used before. I hope I'm right about that or I'm gonna look pretty stupid when the names are revealed haha.

Good work!

I think I know who this is, but I don't think it's who Martin thinks it is (I think).  This anonymous thing is even better this time around.

And, hell...there is virtually nothing to bust on here.  Format, check.  Characters, check.  Dialogue, check.  There is even a little morality tossed in as a bonus.

If forced to pick a beef, I might point out that Scholar buys into Baker's story pretty quick, and seems almost too amenable to Baker's request.  And the arrival of the bandits is a trifle convenient.

But these are trifling complaints.  This one is amongst the best of these.  

The characters were good indeed, I also liked the revenge but as bert pointed out Baker buys everyone's story pretty quick. It may have to do something with him being a priest though but then suddenly he has a gun (he didn't shoot, but it's quite obvious he wanted to).
Nice read.

Here I go:
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

"KATE
Somethin’ we can do for you?
MAE
Somethin’ we can do to you?"
Hahahahaha

"KATE
We promised we wouldn’t speak of that."
Have they been visiting the paramours general store?

"BAKER
Don’t go. It’s nice talkin’ to someone."
Not to big of a fan on this line, I don't think he'd come out and admit that so easily.

"Then I must stay here and help restore
the faith." coooornball rephrase it.  maybe something along the lines of:  Mae: this town went to hell long ago...  Baker: "Well I guess I've got to hang around and fix that."

Then, after the fight, it kind of ended blah, and by the end I mean the last line was like, oh, okay.

I loved this. The characters are what did it, you only had fifteen pages but I feel like I've known them forever.  Just take care of a few of those awkward lines, and maybe an ending with a bang (not literally, I'm so tired of gunshots), and you have yourself quite the script.

Quite the script indeed.

Quoted from Higgonaitor "KATE We promised we wouldn’t speak of that." Have they been visiting the paramours general store?

It would be amusing to combine some of these scripts into a quasi-cohesive storyline...almost Sin City-ish.

I enjoyed this one. A nice buildup to a satisfying climax. The characters were likeable as well. I particularly liked Scholar. It's always nice to see a character with a sophisticated vocabularly in a western. Nice job.

First off, I love the title. Definitely different for a western. Definitely good.

A character named Cooky. A character named Baker. Did someone write while hungry?

I had to look up imbibing. Thanks for the wonderful new word.

In the gunfight scene, there’s one spot I believe would benefit from a little shuffling:

Cooky hits the floor. Scholar lights a cigarette.

As is, it sounds out of chronology to the event, like Cooky just jumps to the floor after the fight is over. I think it would be better to make it clear that Cooky hits the floor during the gunfight, like somewhere between Ike drawing and the other two getting mowed down. And then, of course, Scholar lights the cigarette after it’s over.

Overall, pretty good.

By the way, I didn’t write this. :)

"That's harder to find than people out here" - I don't like this line.  Of course a samaritan is harder to find than a person, unless every person in the town is a samaritan, and I don't mean to be cynical about the human race, but...

Likewise with "That a picture?"  Of course it's a picture.  She could skip right to "That your family?"

Other than that, a nice, quick, enjoyable, and of course, well-written read.  That little "promised we wouldn't speak of that" moment was great, I thought, a little off-beat.  Good stuff.

Hey Everybody,

Thanks for taking the time to read and give feedback.

After looking at th "Guess Who" threads and some other areas where people were trying to figure out who wrote what, I ended up being pretty happy on the whole, since it seems like I wasn't easily identified.  Woo Hoo!


Bert and Kenney,

Thanks for pointing out the one major issue I had while writing this.  I had seriously considered breaking the 15 page mark, and adding an extra day into the script to work around Scholar going along with things so fast, but decided to stick to the rules.  


Martin,

Good guess, since I did have a Catholic upbringing, but I'm 100% sure that you weren't referring to me. :)


Breanne,

I agree about the chronological order thing, especially with Cooky.  It was intended that Scholar had a good vantage point to see Kate and Mae enter, so he remained calm and collected during the entire thing, and Cooky should have hit the dirt earlier.

And you're welcome for the new word.  It's a fine one.


Higgs,

Thanks for commenting on my characters.  I really tried to lay them out and give each one their own little things, and let me tell you, writing Scholar was a blast.  If I ever decide to write a feature length western, I'm definitely bringing him back.

And referring to something as cornball is cornball.  Ha Ha Ha.


Andy,

Wow!  That was without a doubt the greatest piece of feedback I have ever received.  Thank you so much.

Heretic,

I know what yu mean about the picture, but it seemed like he was looking at something on the other side of the room when she walked in, so it just made sense to think that she could only guess at what it was.


George and James,


Thanks for taking a look, and I'm glad you enjoyed it.


Greg,

Glad you liked it, and congrats on being the only person to spot me.  Breanne almost had it, but went in another direction, much to my glee.  Muhuhuhahaha

Hey Mike,

This is the second script I dug up from another OWE tonight, but I think it desereves a bump with the lack of new scripts.

This was pretty good, I think you could use a little more descriptions, like on the first page you say, "he walks to the middle of town"  what does this town look like?  That could bee more of a matter of taste than anything, but where you excel is in dialogue, I think that's your trademark, like a good singer you can hear a song for the first time and know exactly who is singing, kinda like your writing, once the characters start to speak you know you're reading a Mike Shelton script.

                                             MAE
          a bed, a bath, and one marvelous fukin


LOL, sign me up :D

on page 11 Scholar says "I'm not louse either, and that's exactly what I'd be if I let go this journey alone"

I think if he said "let you go ON this journey alone" it would sound better.

The ending was great, eventhough the dialogue between Kate and Baker at the end felt TOO scripted, I don't think it is needed, maybe just Baker asking if the town had a church would be good enough to hint at what he would like to do.

All in all this was a good read.

Hey Jordan,

Thanks for bringing this one back around.  It's really been awhile since I've looked at it.

The descriptions are bit short in this one because this is the first script where I actually attempted to make them that way.  If you remember some of my stuff from before this, you'll notice that they are WAY longer and a lot more chunky.

The Scholar line does read a little funny, but that's exactly how he talks.

Thanks again for reading, and I'm glad you enjoyed it.